MONTPELIER-Vermont’s secretary of state urged voters in this year’s midterm elections not to use the United States Postal Service to return their ballots to town clerks because of growing uncertainty over whether the ballots will be subject to delays, or whether people will appear on a new list of voters President Donald Trump has ordered the USPS to compile.
“Don’t plan to return your ballot by mail,” Sarah Copeland Hanzas said in an interview last week with The Deerfield Valley News. “We don’t know whether there will be further instructions that are given to the Postal Service that might slow down mail processing. This president will stop at nothing to try to prevent people from being able to vote by mail.”
Rather than mailing their completed ballots, Hanzas said, voters should drop ballots in a secure box outside any town clerk’s office, hand them to the clerk in person when the office is open, or vote in person — in which case, voters should be sure to bring the ballots they were mailed.
But another court ruling blocking the rules remains in place, meaning that Vermont voters can cast their votes by mail as they always do, she said.
“USPS cannot move forward with its rule-making process until all legal challenges are resolved, and plenty remain,” Hanzas said in the statement. “As such, my office and Vermont’s municipal clerks will continue our work to prepare for the general election this November, which we expect will employ the usual universal vote-by-mail format Vermonters have become accustomed to.”
Fears that the rule could disenfranchise many voters rose last week when an anonymous whistleblower warned that the rule could prevent many voters from even receiving ballots.
The warning, publicized by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said an entire batch of ballots, possibly containing tens of thousands of votes, could be rejected if a USPS employee finds a single one cannot be matched with voter information from a new online portal, The Washington Post reported.
“The Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans,” the Post quoted Blumenthal.
In her interview with The Deerfield Valley News, Hanzas accused the president of trying to disenfranchise people he thinks won’t vote for his party in the upcoming elections, and she criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent removal of a stay against the rule.
“It is really unfortunate that the Supreme Court has thrown this wrench into the works right now, because it leaves people with a great deal of anxiety, and what that means, practically speaking, is that all over this country there are people who are reaching out to call their elections offices at our busiest time.
“We need to be making sure that everyone who won the primary gets on the general election ballot, and their name is spelled exactly right, and their details are right. This is the last thing we need right now: reassuring voters who are rightfully concerned.
“We don’t see any reason why this executive order should prevail,” she said. “Of course, nothing deters this president from doing things, even when they’re illegal.”
She said the new rule is not workable, especially given the short time in which it would be implemented.
“It’s not workable, but the president’s intention was never for it to be a workable way of verifying who is able to get a ballot. The very fundamental concept that the president gets to publish a list of Vermonters who are eligible to receive a ballot by mail is unconstitutional.”
But voting in person may not be easy for around two-thirds of Vermont voters who typically use the mail instead, she said. Many people in the largely rural state use mailed ballots because they can’t easily reach town clerks’ offices or because they can’t get time off work.
“People like the convenience of voting the ballot that they get mailed at home. It gives them time to really sit down and think and do some research into the candidates they are voting for,” Hanzas said.
On Aug. 21, USPS announced a new rule requiring states to register every voter who is eligible to vote by mail with USPS and tasking Secretaries of State around the country with compiling the registered voters into state-specific lists.
The rule also sets new design requirements for mail-in ballot envelopes and requires states to obtain the approval of USPS for the changes.
Under the rule, should it be enacted, USPS will not deliver ballots to voters who do not appear on USPS-generated lists, and the postal service will not deliver completed ballots in envelopes that fail to comply with the new design standards.
The rule sought to implement an executive order by Trump in March directing the USPS to draw up a new list of eligible voters that would determine who can vote in the Nov. 3 election.
Despite an uproar over the rule change, Hanzas said her office’s process of sending out ballots will begin in mid-September, and will be “business as usual” because a federal court order against the new USPS rule still stands despite a more recent US Supreme Court ruling that overturned a lower court ruling that blocked Trump’s executive order, which directs the USPS to develop the policy.
On Aug. 25, Hanzas said a federal court ruling against the rules still stood despite the Supreme Court ruling.
Before Hanzas’s latest directive to voters, Wilmington and Dover town clerks said voters could mail their ballots despite legal challenges to the proposed new USPS mail-in rules that critics say could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country.
Therese Lounsbury, clerk of Wilmington, and Andy McLean, clerk of Dover, said they were unaware of any significant voter concern that individual votes might be disallowed because of the rules.
But if more people think the rules increase that risk, voters always have the options of dropping their ballot in a box outside each town hall, personally handing them to the clerk, or voting in person on polling day.
“I have received no instruction in terms of supplying a list of registered voters to the United States Postal Service,” Lounsbury said. “Clearly, our stance is the United States Postal Service has no standing in operating an election.”
She said it’s not realistic that a new federal office to determine voter eligibility could be set up in the short time before the Nov. 3 vote.
“Let’s be real,” she said. “The election is in two months. There has been no instruction. As far as we’re concerned, the Secretary of State’s office could start mailing ballots on Sept. 21. Are you telling me a federal office is going to be up and running in 20 days? I don’t think so.”
Lounsbury said mail-in ballots are legally required to be available in her office 45 days before the election.
McLean, who oversees voting for around 1,300 registered voters in Dover, said he has had few inquiries about mail-in voting and has told those people that he doesn’t expect any change in the normal procedure.
“As far as I know, our Secretary of State is feeling that things are going to be business as usual,” McLean said last week.
But those worried that their vote might not be allowed because of the new rules might consider dropping their mail-in ballot in the box outside the town office, or “come in the office and hand it to me,” he said.
Such alternatives are especially valid for people casting their votes close to the election because of postal delays that are separate from the new USPS rules, he said.
“If you are worried about the ballot getting to me on time, there are options there,” McLean said. “As far as I know, the procedure has not changed in Vermont.”
This News item by Jon Hurdle originally appeared in The Deerfield Valley News and was republished in The Commons with permission.